Lovers who murdered husband jailed for life

TWO LOVERS with 'a fatal attraction' for each other last night began life prison sentences for the murder of the woman's husband.

After a two-week trial, the jury at Nottingham Crown Court took less than three hours to convict Noeleen Hendley, 46, of murder. Paul Buxton, 41, the hitman hired by Hendley and her lover to kill her husband, Tony, 46, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life. Each denied the charge.

Terry McIntosh, Hendley's lover, 46, had already pleaded guilty to murder.

Sentencing them, Mr Justice Holland said the case was distinguished by a wickedness that would long be in the memory of anyone who had been involved in it or had listened to the evidence. 'It was not just the fundamental wickedness of plotting to murder a man, but the fact that it was persisted with over a period of a month on almost a daily basis.'

Mr Justice Holland said McIntosh, of Little Eaton, near Derby, had become obsessed with Mrs Hendley. Hendley was besotted with McIntosh and consumed with a hatred for her husband as a result. Buxton, of Loscoe, Derbyshire, was in the plot for financial greed, the judge said.

James Hunte QC, for Hendley, said she was 'no cold Lady Macbeth type figure'. The court heard that Hendley and McIntosh were 'consumed by a terrible passion' begun when they met to arrange the wedding of his daughter and her son.

Brian Escott Cox QC, for the prosecution, described the relationship as 'a fatal attraction'. McIntosh urged Hendley to leave her husband, a catering manager, but because of her Catholicism she would not consider separation or divorce. McIntosh suggested they hire a contract killer to get rid of Tony, at a price of pounds 5,500.

On the night of the attack in November last year, Hendley let Buxton into her home in Breadsall, Derby. When Mr Hendley came in and went upstairs to bed, he was ambushed by a masked man who bludgeoned him 29 times with a rolling pin. He died two days later in hospital.